


A Good Shade On You

by louciferish



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Bacon Exchange 2019, Canon Compliant, Competition, F/F, First Meetings, Fluff, Nail Polish, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Yakov paints Lilia's toes for her often and you can't change my mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21596023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: It’s stupid, but Sara’s still not used to getting ready alone. When she’d decided to cut Mickey’s apron strings during the Grand Prix series last year, she hadn’t considered the little ways that choice might reverberate through the rest of her life. Sure, she no longer has to help Mickey pick between thethreeties he owns for half an hour before every banquet—a task she misses not at all—but she also has no one to help with her hair, no one to offer her a supporting arm for balance as she takes off her skate guards, and, apparently, no one to help her paint her nails before competitions.
Relationships: Mila Babicheva/Sara Crispino
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43
Collections: BaconExchange2019





	A Good Shade On You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewalrus_said](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewalrus_said/gifts).



> This is for the exchange on Kazul's server! Which was partially my fault!
> 
> But I was heckin' thrilled to draw Tess's name and to use the occasion as an excuse to write more Mila/Sara :D I hope you enjoy this gentle, soft wlw fluff on this fine November afternoon owo
> 
> and that Yuuri Katsuki has the best birthday ever
> 
> Shoutout to De_Mimsy for the beta and support with getting this over the minimum word count line at last XDD

Turning side to side in the mirror, Sara smooths down her skirt and scowls at her reflection. The season has barely begun, and already she’s sick of this particular costume. With its pink lace and rhinestones, it wouldn’t be out of place at a kindergartener’s birthday party even though, at seventeen, Sara is getting ready to move up to the senior level in a few months. She’s pretty much an adult. Her family may have persuaded her to do one last year on the Junior Grand Prix circuit, but only through sheer force of personality. Soon, she’ll be done with childish competitions—and, hopefully, with childish costumes too. 

“ _Crap_ ,” someone mutters behind her, and Sara tilts her head to catch their reflection in the mirror.

The tiniest girl she’s seen today sits sideways on a bench, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Long, bright red hair cascades over most of her face, obscuring the name on the back of her distinctive Team Russia jacket. She’s stooped forward, brows furrowed in concentration as she tries to paint the nails on her left hand the same shade of emerald green as her dress. 

Curious, Sara watches as the girl dots the brush on her index finger, then swipes, and the paint goes wide. Sara’s not sure what the words spilling from her mouth mean exactly, as the girl scrambles for a paper towel to scrub the excess before it dries, but she can guess from the tone that it’s more cursing. The girl has quite a mouth for someone so small.

“Need a hand?” Sara asks. She pushes her shoulders back, posture perfect, trying to look every bit the experienced pseudo-adult she is. The girl glances up, and her mouth drops open.

 _Oh._ Sara’s reputation precedes her. She tries not to preen. She’s made it to the Final in the Junior series for two years in a row already, and she’s hoping to make it three today. Last year, she’d taken home bronze. If she can keep the bouncy little fourteen and fifteen year olds off her tail, she’s favored for gold this year. 

The new girl pinks under Sara’s attention. “You don’t have to,” she blurts out. Her English is a little rough around the edges, but it’s not bad. She’s got a better head start than many of her peers.

Sara approaches and takes a seat on the bench, putting her own jacket down first so the aging wood can’t snag her tights. “Are you left-handed?” The girl nods, blue eyes wide and dominating her face above baby fat-rounded cheeks. “I have the same problem trying to get my right hand done,” Sara says, wiggling her bright pink, sparkly nails. “Luckily, I trained my brother to do it for me.”

“My mom always did mine before,” the girl says, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “But now I have a serious coach, and Mama can’t come to all my competitions.”

“Who’s your coach?” Sara holds out her hand, palm up, and the girl rests her fingers against Sara’s. Biting her lip, Sara holds in a remark. She’d only meant for the girl to pass her the polish, but pointing that out might embarass her too much. Instead, Sara keeps the hand and reaches for the bottle herself with her left hand.

“Yakov Feltsman.” 

Sara nods, rustling through her memories of program announcements and Grand Prix assignments. Yakov’s best competitor among the ladies is a woman named Polina Volkov. She’s a lovely, artistic skater, but she’s also twenty-five and recently announced her engagement. When the selective Russian coach had put out to the press that he was taking on a new junior lady, no one was surprised—Polina is clearly on her way to retirement.

“Then you must be… Mika?” Sara hazards, her memory of the announcement fuzzy.

“Mila,” the girl corrects, pinking again. She doesn’t seem bothered by the mistake, which is good. Maybe she isn’t as easily shaken as Sara thought. “Mila Babicheva. This is my first junior competition.”

“I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully.” Sara switches hands and begins to carefully paint the small, pale crescents of Mila’s left hand. “Do you want to know a secret—for good luck?”

“Sure,” Mila breathes.

Sara grins, feeling mischievous. “Coach Feltsman seems very serious, but he’s really a big softie, and I bet he does nails too.” She’s never seen him do it, of course, but Sara’s met Lilia Baranovskaya a couple times, and she remembers what Victor Nikiforov was like a few years ago, before he cut his hair. She has her suspicions. 

“Really?”

“Really.” Sara winks. “Next time, you should ask him to help out and see what happens.”

Mila’s eyes are round and bright as a doll’s, but then a slow smile creeps across her face, and Sara sees a hint of mischief reflected right back at her. “Okay,” Mila says. “If nothing else, it’ll be funny to see his face when I ask.”

Sara dots final touches onto the nails, then bends, blowing cool air across the wet emeralds. When she looks up, Mila’s cheeks are red as her hair. 

“Thank you,” the girl squeaks, and Sara wonders where her confidence ran away to.

“Crispino? Sara!” Sara raises her head at the familiar call of her coach’s voice. “You’re on for warm-up. What are you waiting for?”

“Sorry, Coach.” Sara hops up. She places a hand on the crown of Mila’s head, light and brief, on her way out the door. “Good luck today, Miss Mila! I hope I see you a lot more in the future.”

As she leaves, she hears a bright young voice call after her, “Oh, you _will_.”

Perfect. Sara will look forward to it.

-

As she stoops over to lace up her boots, Sara bites back a groan. There’s a _flaw_ in her nail polish on the thumb, a jagged slash deep enough for her ivory nail to show through. Her others on that hand are speckled and smudged as well. She’d been too hasty earlier, getting ready, and she must have switched tasks before the paint completely dried. 

It’s stupid, but she’s still not used to getting ready alone. When she’d decided to cut Mickey’s apron strings during the Grand Prix series last year, she hadn’t considered the little ways that choice might reverberate through the rest of her life. Sure, she no longer has to help Mickey pick between the _three_ ties he owns for half an hour before every banquet—a task she misses not at all—but she also has no one to help with her hair, no one to offer her a supporting arm for balance as she takes off her skate guards, and, apparently, no one to help her paint her nails before competitions.

She’d been so proud of them, too. Even the right hand looked good. Now she’s going to have to start over, and the acetone will likely damage the polish on her other hand too.

“Need some help?” Sara knows that voice _well_ now, and she smiles even before looking up. Mila is sparkling—literally—in her sleek black bodysuit, the torso slashed with gold. It may be Sara’s favorite of all her costumes so far; it’s so daring. Someday before she retires, Sara hopes to rock a bodysuit with even half so much confidence.

“ _Could_ you?” Sara asks. She digs through the side pocket of her duffel bag, pulling out the little bottle of polish remover and the same purple paint as before. “Even if you only help me take the old stuff off, that would be a lifesaver.” She does own a pair of soft white gloves. She could just put them on, hide the flaws, but she’s always preferred to skate without them. Her first coach considered gloves uncouth, and Sara’s proud of her scrapes and calluses. They’re like medals in and of themselves, another testament to the work she puts in.

“It’s nothing.” Mila takes the polish and sits down on the bench beside her, holding out her hand in waiting for Sara’s. She winks as she adds, “I’m just returning the favor, anyway.”

For a beat, Sara can’t remember what she means, but then the image pops into place—tiny, thirteen year-old Mila, trembling as Sara helped to paint her fingernails green for her first international competition. Sara laughs. “Oh my god. How do you even remember that? It was so long ago.”

Time passes fast in competitive figure skating; skaters rise to the top, then fall just as abruptly, cut down by injury or fading back, overtaken by younger and stronger competitors. Most of the senior ladies Sara had looked up to as a junior have long since retired. By the time Mila had reappeared in her life three years after they met, debuting as a senior herself, Sara hadn’t even recognized the strong, sassy, and confident young woman that Mila had grown into.

“Of course I remember,” Mila says. She wets a cotton pad and wipes the ruined paint from Sara’s fingers one by one, taking care not to get any on her own hands. Her gold polish looks professionally done. “The St. Petersburg rink is such a boy’s club. I didn’t know many of the other girls back then. You made a big impression.”

“In fact…” she pauses to switch her task, capping the acetone and picking up the polish instead. “I had a little bit of a crush on you after that.” Suddenly, her intense concentration on fixing Sara’s nails seems much more like a convenient excuse not to meet Sara’s eyes. “Not that you were the Victor to my Yuuri or anything like that, but—I looked up to you.”

The turn to confession is unexpected, and Sara isn’t sure what to say. She struggles to lighten the mood, maybe joke that Mila _will_ be looking up to her—on the podium tomorrow—but finds herself tongue-tied as Mila caps the nail polish and leans in to blow gently on Sara’s wet fingernails. 

Mila’s red waves fall forward, obscuring her face and Sara’s hand both, and she looks much like a knight in a tapestry, kneeling to kiss his lady’s ring. Sara’s breath catches. She’s intensely aware, now, that Mila is holding her hand; the contrast between warm skin and her cool breath makes it unmistakable. Sara feels her cheeks heat as Mila finally looks up, and her eyes seem even bluer than usual, almost violet.

“Are you blushing over me?” Mila teases with a sly smile. “Oh, my crush likes me back.” Sara tries to pull her hand away on instinct, wanting to cover her face and hide her own reactions, but Mila’s fingers tighten against her own. “You know, I’ve been wondering… now that you and Mickey are taking some time apart, does that mean you’re allowed to start dating?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sara turns her head, teasing Mila in return with feigned disinterest, even as her pulse drums a tango in her throat. Mila can’t be asking what Sara _thinks_ she is. “I’m afraid anyone interested might still have to fight him for my hand.”

Mila’s thumb slips across Sara’s skin in a gentle caress, her fingernails tickling the heart of Sara’s palm. “But,” she says, “I already _have_ your hand.”

So she does, and Sara is in no hurry to ever take it back. She can feel her face heating, and tries to cover it with her other splayed hand, but Mila gently takes that one too, pulling it away until she can see both Sara’s ruddy cheeks and her thrilled little smile. 

“Hey,” Mila says, soft like she’s speaking to a wild thing, “after I you finish kicking my butt around the ice, would you like to meet for dinner?”

“I would love that,” Sara admits. She lets Mila keep her hands, enchanted by the glide of Mila’s thumbs across her skin and the intense brightness of her blue eyes. 

They remain like this, hands intertwined, talking softly of a bright future, until a competition volunteer comes to usher them away for warm-up.


End file.
